Review of Nigerian poet Sodiq Oyekanmi’s poem ‘river’

Review of Nigerian poet Sodiq Oyekanmi’s poem ‘river’ I request the readers to kindly read the poem first from the link https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/poem/river/ and my review after that. Thank you. There is no need for the reviewer to explain any line in this direct poem which is an outcry not to pollute our rivers. I would just reproduce the note below the poem: ------------------------ Writing this poem is a serious task for it requires 100% attention and intentionality with the languages. Some nuances are quite difficult to capture. The word Yemọja would translate roughly to a mermaid in English, but in this poem, it’s deeper than that—it’s spiritual. Yemọja in this poem is a goddess, the patron saint of freshwater in the Yorùbá pantheon. ------------------------ We understand Yemoja refers to the river goddess and in Nigeria there had been a saint Yoruba. Racists in the west find the colored ominous and not capable of anything worthy. In India religious fundamentalists always parrot ‘only during the ancient era there was good literature in the holy Sanskrit language’ and lot more subtly hinting that art and literature were that of an elite race the Aryan race and all that. But the real elite and respectable are the poets and activists like Sodiq who are culturally comparable with the tribes in India and elsewhere who worshipped nature and this poem reflects their commitment and oneness with nature.